I don't think that it's such a bad thing for staff to have a badge showing that they're staff - the staff over at Total War Center, for example, have both bold, coloured, text, and badges denoting that they're a member of staff.

Just my 2 cents, but I don't necessarily see it as 'redundant'.

Yeah, I agree. A badge might be easier to notice too. I used to get confused by seing a bolded name but no status. I think if they had two staff badges for current and retired it might clear things up.

On-Topic - If you're looking to add ridiculously easily obtained badges there are a few obvious ones that come to mind.

Birthday Badge - for spending a birthday at LF
Do it Yourself Badge - using a custom avatar/sig pic
Friend Badge - make X amount of friends
Survival Badge - go X amount of time without being modded XD
Referral Badge - for getting a friend to sign up for LF, don't know if this is "trackable" atm though

Yea most of those are stupid, but that's all I got for now.

"Women are like sunsets… they’re beautiful, but there will be a different one tomorrow." - Gilder

On-Topic - If you're looking to add ridiculously easily obtained badges there are a few obvious ones that come to mind.

Birthday Badge - for spending a birthday at LF
Do it Yourself Badge - using a custom avatar/sig pic
Friend Badge - make X amount of friends
Survival Badge - go X amount of time without being modded XD
Referral Badge - for getting a friend to sign up for LF, don't know if this is "trackable" atm though

Yea most of those are stupid, but that's all I got for now.

there's a referral counter on the statistics page of member profiles

"No, Mama. You can bet your sweet ass and half a titty whoever put that hit on you already got the cops in their back pocket." ~Black Dynamite

Yeah, I agree. A badge might be easier to notice too. I used to get confused by seing a bolded name but no status. I think if they had two staff badges for current and retired it might clear things up.

I think a retired staff badge would be ok, but still redundant since we have the italicized names for that.

As for a bolded name with no status, that indicates that the person is a moderator in a different forum. If you're seeing that, that means that the person has no power where you currently are. How will giving them a staff badge help newer members to understand that?

(Edit: Actually, this abomination earned 4,046 replies before it was murdered, yet due to a date/time glitch, Lynk Former's post was somehow appended above mine, and so the "credit" for creating that thread is somewhat ambiguous.)

Just a question. Could someone clarify for me the requirements needed for the Vet badge? Because I figure if Ave and J7 have one, would it also be reasonable to think that someone like Sabre, TK, or Dev should have one?

If that is the case, I will ask for a formal recommendation in the Badge Rec thread but I wanted to ask this question first.

I second that question. To me a forum veteran means someone who's been here a certain amount of time and has experience when it comes to behaving properly on these forums.

The Veteran badge description says: "Awarded to active long-time members who are part of making LF what it is today." This seems to confirm my understanding of the forum veteran term, however, some of the reasons why this badge is given to people seem to comply more with the "Notable contributor" and "Helpful" badges and others are completely unclear (eg. "Aresener", "Emperor of Aresen"), which makes me extremely confused.

I second that question. To me a forum veteran means someone who's been here a certain amount of time and has experience when it comes to behaving properly on these forums.

More or less, in my opinion. Someone who's been around for quite a while, knows the place and who people know about/recognize. I.e. a veteran community member who's been proven to stick around and not just pop by for a while and ask some game related questions or something.

That's my take on it at least. The reason why nobody has given you any clear set of guidelines is because none exist so far. This feature is pretty new so everything hasn't been nailed down yet and badges handed out so far has been what individual moderators have thought of.

Also, keep in mind that currently all badges have to be assigned manually by a moderator, so it might take some time for everyone who's retroactively deserving of a particular badge to end up with it (use the recommendation thread if you think someone has been overlooked to help the moderators along with this). Hopefully these things will be settled in time.

The Illuminati of Aresen Our beloved and much respected Emperor will be very interested in this kind of statement, which I did just fwd to the responsible persons. Prepare for your bi-weekly anal probing procedure to come now twice a day,.. I mean, what's good for the Emperor can't be that bad for you then Mister 'person really being in charge' Prime Minister, Sir!

Zoom is very much aware of our arrangement. He and I discussed it in length on the day of his inauguration, remember? I'm the one who runs things while he gets to sit pretty on his throne. That was the deal.

You lesser beings need not concern yourself with such high Imperial court matters my foolhardy jester.

Zoom is very much aware of our arrangement. He and I discussed it in length on the day of his inauguration, remember? I'm the one who runs things while he gets to sit pretty on his throne. That was the deal.

Ah.

Quote:

Prime Minister of Aresen: Should act officious to newbies but obseqious to superiors. Responsible for making Imperial decisions if I'm offline (although executions can occur to reward decisions which prove later to be unpopular with our Imperial Majesty.)

There's no deal...you nog.

Quote:

You lesser beings need not concern yourself with such high Imperial court matters my foolhardy jester.

I was directed to this thread by the other recommendation thread; my apologies if this is the wrong place for this.

I would like to request a badge for Roleplaying, awarded to long running stories/series' as well as completed "one shot" stories. I request this badge in consideration of Alkonium's long running Sith Resurrection Series, as well as the Mercenary Crew Series (both running out of the Dantooine Theatre Company at SWK.net, though I'm sure there are other RPs that deserve such a badge that run in other areas of the forum), both of which have excellent lead writers and exceptional teams working/playing on them.

Sorry Igy, I didn't see your earlier post. But my idea is slightly different than yours.

When an RP is completed, stoffe, or recognised by people beyond the scope of the project as exceptional in quality, the award could be given to the Threadmaster. If it's a completed project, or the Threadmaster wishes to share recognition (which they should be encouraged to do), he or she can designate fellow players whom they feel were instrumental to the development of the story. Those players would then also be given the award. This last bit is to avoid the award being given to people who posted there or four times in the beginning, then dropped out. Unless the Threadmaster feels their contribution was vital enough to also warrant recognition for the final version, it's not really fair to give them a badge for it. If we did that, everyone who's ever posted in an RP could argue their way into getting one, and it would defeat the purpose of having a badge for it at all.

When an RP is completed or recognised by people beyond the scope of the project as exceptional in quality, the award could be given to the Threadmaster. If it's a completed project, or the Threadmaster wishes to share recognition (which they should be encouraged to do), he or she can designate fellow players whom they feel were instrumental to the development of the story.

All right, sounds reasonable enough. The badge has been added; please check if the description sounds OK on the badge listing page, as I've never done any roleplaying and am somewhat unfamiliar with their organization and terminology.

Quote:

Originally Posted by igyman

People Person - given to members who have <number> or more friends on the forum.

Game Master - for those active in the RP sections. Perhaps there could be a thread every few months for members to nominate the best forum RPs and the member who started the "best forum RP" in that period would get this badge.

The People Person one can be hard to set up guidelines for how it should be given; how would you measure if someone is a friend of someone else?

As for the game master one, if it's run as a sort of "contest" a separate contest winner badge could be added for that, if someone would be willing to organize that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by igyman

I've noticed there's a new "Helpful" badge. My last suggestion would be that either this one, or the "Notable contributor" badge be also given to members who have contributed to the forums by making a significant amount of avatars/signature images/banners/etc for their fellow members.

Sounds like a "Helpful" act to me. Clarification of the criteria for requesting some of the badges has been added in the first post in the nominations thread (the others should get added too once we have some agreement on guidelines). Should hopefully make it somewhat easier to tell who fit into what category.

The People Person one can be hard to set up guidelines for how it should be given; how would you measure if someone is a friend of someone else?

I linked to the post because of the RP badge part, but since you asked I guess I should clarify this one:

This was a suggestion of an easily won badge, sort of a starter badge that would motivate people to contribute to the forum in other ways and thus earn those "more significant" badges. The criteria I was going for was the number of friends a member had, referring to the friends tab in that member's profile.